Analyzes key concepts and arguments in the work of one of Europe’s leading philosophers. One of Europe’s leading philosophers, Roberto Esposito has produced a considerable body of work that continues to have a significant impact on political science, sociology, literature, and philosophy. This volume offers both a comprehensive introduction to and critical explanation of Esposito’s political thought and key concepts from his oeuvre. The contributors address aspects of his growing corpus such as the impolitical, community, immunity, the impersonal, affirmative biopolitics, (...) justice, life, the third person, and the body. In addition, they highlight Esposito’s reading and interpretation of classical political thinkers, including Hobbes, Machiavelli, Vico, Arendt, and Kant. The book explores applications of Esposito’s philosophy to issues in international relations, post-colonialism, literature, science, technology, and philosophical and artistic practice, bringing Esposito into dialogue with important social-political concerns. “To my knowledge there are no other books—in Italian or English—that attempt to provide a critical introduction to Esposito’s works and an engagement with his works in fields outside of political science and philosophy. This volume is an important first.” — Rhiannon Noel Welch, author of Vital Subjects: Race and Biopolitics in Italy. (shrink)

What is the ontological status of mathematical structures? Michael Resnic, Stewart Shapiro and Gianluigi Oliveri, are contemporaries of American philosophers on mathematics, they give Platonic answers on this question.

ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH OF EDITH STEIN (translated by Inna Savynska)The main Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden in his lecture presents a cross-section of Edith Stein writings and demonstrates the shot timeliness of her ideas. Roman Ingarden was a Stein’s friend from the time of her studies in Göttingen;he knew her ideas and conceptions. He wrote that hers was a search for ananswer to the main question: «What is the structure of man?» That is why she proposed a phenomenological analysis (...) by «Empathy». Stein’s theses «On the Problem of Empathy» is the central object in this lecture. In that work, Stein first focuses on such phenomena as the human body, soul, spirit, experience, consciousness. While discussing Stein’s concepts, Ingarden presents also the evolution of her ideas from realistic phenomenology to mystical theology of Saint John of the Cross’ and Saint Theresa of Avila’s. Roman Ingarden did not enter as firmly as Stein into the mystical range, but he opened a path into the transcendence by creating an idea of metaphysical qualities. In her dissertation, Stein first focuses on the phenomenon of the human body and soul. Ingarden considers pairs of phenomenological notions «Leib- Körper», «Seele-Geist». Their relationships form an ontology of a Person. The anthropological questions, which Edith Stein raised in her academic research, bring about a constitutive element of man – Geist. Empathy is an instrument that help to recognize Geist and Personal experience – truth about man. (shrink)

Ще донедавна суспільний розвиток і регенерація навколишнього природного середовища перебували у динамічній рівновазі. Проте останніми роками, незважаючи на колосальні екологічні резерви біосфери та її самоочисну спроможність, інтенсивне зростання чисельності населення планети, бурхливе піднесення промисловості, сільського й комунального господарства та інші антропогенні чинники призвели до різкого негативного впливу на природу. Насамперед це стосується забруднення біосфери хімічними речовинами-ксенобіотиками, порушення природних геохімічних циклів, а також інтенсивного, нераціонального використання природних ресурсів. Тому сьогодні надзвичайно актуальним є формування нової екологічної свідомості громадян. А запровадження спеціалізованої екологічної (...) освіти має сприяти генеруванню їх екологічного світогляду, прищеплювати їм любов до рідного краю, виробляти навички бережливого й раціонального споживання природних ресурсів і спрямовувати на створення ефективної системи екологічної безпеки. (shrink)

The issues of the optimum rate between risk and profitability of bank business have been investigated. The bank operation peculiarities in risk and uncertain conditions are studied. There has been revealed a matter of risk as bank and economic term, it has been presented interlink between various risks and the necessity to improve the managerial process by bank credit risk has been justified. Practical algorithms for solving problems on possible bank credit risks prognosis have been considered and there has been (...) justified the reasonability of their using by banks at practical assessment of creditability of a borrower. A situational simulation of the part of bank's overdue loan debts under different conditions was carried out. The variants of possible developments of bank's credit portfolio during financial crisis were forecasted using conventional examples. According to the calculation banks have been offered to develop their own credit strategy by simulating various situations choosing the most convenient as to risk value as well as to minimize their credit risks and improving an assessment of creditability of borrowers in addition to assessment models, developed by a bank, well-known assessment models of the bankruptcy probabilities, which, by comparing all of them, give the clear picture of possible financial deterioration in future and to use A-calculation method which is based considering subjective factors which, not less than objective ones, can indicate the risk of the loan debts. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to study the state of economic development and disintegration risks in Scotland in the context of the new coronavirus pandemic. Scenarios of disintegration processes in Scotland are constructed and disclosed. The new coronavirus pandemic has caused an unprecedented systemic economic crisis. The global economic crisis of 2008-2009 showed that systemic economic crises are the cause of widespread disintegration manifestations. This is also typical for the EU-an integration association, which since its formation has been characterized (...) by the presence of a number of disintegration "hotbeds". One of the traditional sources of disintegration manifestations in Europe is Scotland. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that, unlike other regions of the United Kingdom, the people of Scotland voted mainly for continued coexistence with the EU. This circumstance was one of the key reasons for the further acceleration of the disintegration processes in Scotland on the "domino principle". The new coronavirus pandemic has made a destructive contribution to the UK-EU relationship. Although the new referendum has been postponed indefinitely from 2020, it is highly likely to be held. As a result, it was revealed that most of the people of Scotland plan to vote for leaving the EU. (shrink)

In the history of European philosophy and science, René Descartes is considered an author of a methodology of radical doubt, meditation, and the conception that explains the cause of human errors. But the course on internalization, knowledge of one's own Self, methodology of searching foundation of knowledge and conception of perfect reason have been formed already in the times of a Late Antiquity, particular by Augustine in his works “Soliloquies” and “Confession”, Boethius’s “The Consolation of Philosophy” and was continued in (...) the New age by Loyola’s “Spiritual exercises” and Teresa of Avila’s “The Interior Castle”. Therefore, Descartes could be rightfully considered rather the brilliant inheritor of this tradition than pioneer. To this chain of philosophers and theologians who were forerunners of Descartes’s theory of Radical doubt and especially problem of the source of human errors worth to add a new name – Hadewijch, the representative of medieval Dutch vernacular theology and her works “Visions” along with “Letters”. Precisely her point of view on cause of human errors, very close to the explanation have been given by Descartes in his IV Meditation. The aim of the research is to demonstrate common positions of Descartes’s and Hadewijch’s explanation of the nature of the errors. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIndividual differences in fear generalisation have been proposed to play a role in the aetiology and/or maintenance of anxiety disorders, but few data are available to directly support that claim. The research that is available has focused mostly on generalisation of peripheral and central physiological fear responses. Far less is known about the generalisation of avoidance, the behavioural component of fear. In two experiments, we evaluated how neuroticism, a known vulnerability factor for anxiety, modulates an array of fear responses, including (...) avoidance tendencies, towards generalisation stimuli. Participants underwent differential fear conditioning, in which one conditioned stimulus was repeatedly paired with an aversive outcome, whereas another was not. Fear generalisation was observed across measures in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, with overall highest responding to the CS+, lowest to the CS− and intermediate responding to the GSs. Neuroticism had very little impact on fear generalisation, in line with the idea that fear generalisation is largely an adaptive process. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAffective states influence how individuals process information and behave. Some theories predict emotional congruency effects. Emotional congruency should theoretically obstruct the learning of reward associations and their ability to guide behaviour under negative mood. Two studies tested the effects of the induction of a negative affective state on appetitive Pavlovian learning, in which neutral stimuli were associated with chocolate or alcohol rewards. In both experiments, participants showed enhanced approach tendencies towards predictors of reward after a negative relative to a positive (...) performance feedback manipulation. This increase was related to a reduction in positive affect in Experiment 1 only. No effects of the manipulation on conditioned reward expectancies, craving, or consumption were observed. Overall, our findings support the idea of counter-regu... (shrink)

Social researchers have extensively addressed the immigration of one million Russian speakers to Israel/palestine over the past twenty-five years. However, the immigrants’ incorporation into the Israeli occupation regime and the ongoing colonisation of Palestine have rarely been questioned as such. In the interviews informing this article, Russian-speaking immigrant women living in Arab-Palestinian communities discuss their complex relations with Palestinian, Jewish-Israeli and Russian-Israeli communities. Sharing a background with Russian-speaking Jewish Israelis on the one hand, and marital kinship ties to Palestinians on (...) the other, these women encounter multiple boundaries of territory and identity in their everyday lives. Drawing on feminist border thinking, I explore these encounters as a navigation through geopolitical and epistemic borderlands in a dense colonial reality. I am particularly interested in the potential of such an exploration to question essentialism and destabilise binary ethno-national categories of identity, such as Arab/jew and Israeli/palestinian, that dominate not only hegemonic but also emancipatory discourses. These binary divisions are not a straightforward outcome of political regimes but rather the result of ongoing border-making processes, which are vulnerable to disorder and disruption. This perspective aims to enrich understandings of the roles that gendered ethno-national identities play in sustaining the colonial relations of power in Israel/palestine. (shrink)

The authors prove and describe the action of new networking mechanisms of formation of identities which arise in the context of societal transformations of the modern society. The networking mechanisms of identity formation represent a complex of interrelated and interdependent practices in global information and communication space, promoting individual and collective identification, interiorization and reflection. The complex includes the mechanism of network communication, mechanism of reflexive involvement of a person into the public space, mechanism of network topos-structuring and mechanism of (...) public crowdsourcing. The results of the empirical research show that the functionality of the mechanism of network communication for reproducing/positioning traditional identities and projecting new identities resides in its digital nature and a network ethos. The mechanism of reflexive involvement of individuals into the public space enables individual and collective actors to project the independent social worlds requiring the creation of their own virtualized public spaces that are closely linked with the common social space. The mechanism of network toposstructuring and mechanism of public crowdsourcing, forming situation and problem identities, have the high mobilization potential to update the activity of network communities in the form of individuals’ initiatives and large-scale civil movements where new sustained identities form which can also gain the protest nature. The authors come to conclusion that the complex of network mechanisms produces the dynamic matrix of the identity of a modern person allowing to take the opportunities for its development in the contemporary conditions of new social reality formation. At the same time, the complex of networking mechanisms is not stable; its content depends on those institutional practices which determine further conditions, processes and results of formation of identities, requiring their conceptual understanding and empirical research in social sciences. (shrink)

The authors prove and describe the action of new networking mechanisms of formation of identities which arise in the context of societal transformations of the modern society. The networking mechanisms of identity formation represent a complex of interrelated and interdependent practices in global information and communication space, promoting individual and collective identification, interiorization and reflection. The complex includes the mechanism of network communication, mechanism of reflexive involvement of a person into the public space, mechanism of network topos-structuring and mechanism of (...) public crowdsourcing. The results of the empirical research show that the functionality of the mechanism of network communication for reproducing/positioning traditional identities and projecting new identities resides in its digital nature and a network ethos. The mechanism of reflexive involvement of individuals into the public space enables individual and collective actors to project the independent social worlds requiring the creation of their own virtualized public spaces that are closely linked with the common social space. The mechanism of network toposstructuring and mechanism of public crowdsourcing, forming situation and problem identities, have the high mobilization potential to update the activity of network communities in the form of individuals’ initiatives and large-scale civil movements where new sustained identities form which can also gain the protest nature. The authors come to conclusion that the complex of network mechanisms produces the dynamic matrix of the identity of a modern person allowing to take the opportunities for its development in the contemporary conditions of new social reality formation. At the same time, the complex of networking mechanisms is not stable; its content depends on those institutional practices which determine further conditions, processes and results of formation of identities, requiring their conceptual understanding and empirical research in social sciences. (shrink)

Offering a critical introduction to the philosophical debate on the concept of the political, this book explores recent developments in continental philosophy. Inna Viriasova engages with key contemporary thinkers including Agamben, Esposito, Henry and Meillassoux and explores the debate in the context of the Italian concept of the impolitical.

While teaching values is an important part of education, contemporary moral education, however, presents a set of pre-established values to be inculcated rather than comprising a critical inquiry into their possible rightness and wrongness. This essay proposes a somewhat different direction by saying that education, rather than concerning itself with the moral, should concern itself with the ethical. Although morals and ethics are usually equated, we use ethical here as posited by Gilles Deleuze's question of who we might be, based (...) on the recognition that we have no real idea of who we might be because we do not yet know what a body (which for Deleuze, after Spinoza, is both physical and mental, corporeal and incorporeal) is capable of. This essay addresses the ethical dimension of Deleuze's philosophy in the context of education and pedagogy as based on several important conceptual shifts. First, it proposes a broader inquiry into who we might be. Second, it proposes that it is what we do not know, rather than what we do, that is of educational significance. Third, it asserts that much of our world, as well as our learning, are unconscious rather than conscious. This postulate accords with Deleuze's larger ontology, in which there is more to this world than appears to common sense in immediate experience. And fourth, it proposes education as committed to experimentation rather than the transmission of facts or inculcation of values. (shrink)

Medical ethics is a branch of applied ethics that is deeply connected with the philosophy of medicine. Medical ethics mainly focuses on the moral issues of medicine. It also deals with the problems of euthanasia, abortion, clinical trials, health care and well-being. There are many approaches or moral theories inside applied ethics. They give moral reasons for medic’s actions, especially in difficult or controversial situations. Among the numerous contemporary ethical theories, the theory of realism by English philosopher Philippa Foot takes (...) a particular place. Her theory of moral realism has been formed under the influence of Aristotle and Tomas Aquinas’ ethics. (shrink)

Philosophical problems arise in every sphere of the science. Philosophers should be able to recognize an issue and give a reasonable response. Medicine is an especial sphere, where one can discover many philosophical questions about the nature of human health and diseases, limits of scientific methodology, etc. Since ancient times, philosophers have been engaged in medicine. Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Aristotle, Avicenna, René Descartes were famous in both areas: philosophy and medicine. Nowadays, links between these spheres in their strong meaning are (...) reflected in three types: philosophy for medicine, philosophy in medicine and philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

Competitive potential of higher educational institutions is presented as quality-quantitative parameters of supply. For the calculation of parameters an index "the licensed enrolment" is utilized. Proofs of absence of co-ordination in operating of educational under forming of competition potential are adduced. The low level of maturity of competitive relations of educational establishments results in uncontrolled growth of aggregate supply. This circumstance presupposes of competitive activity intensification local market of services of higher education.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. The Polish administration of Eastern Galicia created obstacles to the spread of education among the Ukrainian people. First of all it concerned primary schools. Discrimination was practiced by the Poles in the organization of the middle level education. The conflict was also sharp in Lviv University. Polonization of education caused an active confrontation of the Galician-Ukrainian intelligentsia. In the Galician Sejm and the Austrian Parliament, Ukrainian MPs have repeatedly made strong appeals to the (...) government to resolve these issues. (shrink)

By the third millennium of its history, humanity has experienced most of the possible ideas, projects, utopias of achievement of social happiness, the basis of which is freedom: freedom as a social phenomenon, individual freedom, that is, existential.

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that the contemporary international refugee regime is grounded in a paradigm of ‘homesickness’, which puts the refugee in an inferior position of the supplicant, whose subjectivity is framed by the regime of fixed belonging. In order to address this situation, we need to challenge the ontological primacy of homesickness and embrace ‘homelessness’, which offers the possibility of rethinking the positions of both refugees and non-refugees in ethical terms. While the responsibility of the non-refugees lies in cultivating an (...) ethos of hospitality, the refugee can take hold of her subjectivity through the practice of care of the self. This paper first examines Nietzsche’s thought on homelessness and compares it with Foucault’s reading of the role of anakhōrēsis in the Hellenistic practice of care of the self. It then suggests how, by building on the project of universal hospitality, we can interpret the figure of the refugee through the prism of an ethic of freedom, anchored in a posit... (shrink)

In this article, the object of research interest is the phenomenon of social control and the role of digital media in the process of digital surveillance. In the first part, the authors characterise the specifics of the panoptical and postpanoptical models of social control. The second part of the article explores the specifics of modern types of surveillance provided by digital media. It is shown that digital media extremely effectively modify communication systems, determine the main vectors of socio-cultural and personal (...) development, and are also one of the key elements of the digital control system. (shrink)

Стаття присвячена проблемі становлення та розвитку системи військово-топографічних обстежень у Російській імперії в ХІХ ст. Аналізуючи проблему створення військово-топографічних описів, автор перш за все приділяє увагу дослідженню джерельної бази описово-статистичних джерел, установленню рівня їхньої репрезентативності та достовірності. Завдяки залученню історико-порівняльного методу автору дослідження вдалося повністю реконструювати джерельну базу військово-статистичних творів, установити рівень володіння укладачами описів методами джерелознавчої критики. Подібне дослідження відкриває нові можливості для переосмислення проблеми інформативності військово-топографічних описів України кінця 40-х - початку 50-х рр. ХІХ ст.

У статті автор пропонує своє бачення процесу становлення системи кадастрового обліку в національних районах Російської імперії . Аналізуються нормативно-правові документи, що слугували юридичною основою для проведення генерального межування та обліку земельних дач на південноукраїнських землях. Досліджуються технічні засади межування та основні проблеми, з якими стикалися співробітники межових контор під час вимірювальних робіт на Півдні України.

Emotional creativity refers to cognitive abilities and personality traits related to the originality of emotional experience and expression. Previous studies have found that the COVID-19 epidemic and the restrictions imposed increased the levels of negative emotions, which obstructed adaptation. This research suggests that EC predicts the motivation for innovative adaptive behavior under the restrictions of COVID-19. In the case study of university professors, we show that EC predicts the motivation to creatively capitalize on the imposed online teaching in looking for (...) innovative research and personal development. Methodologically, we rely on the Emotional Creativity Inventory administered to a sample of 463 university professors from the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, and Russia. The indicators for motivation for innovative performance included motivations to use distant methods of scientific research, to look for partners for conducting scientific research in other cities or abroad, to conduct interdisciplinary research, starting distance learning to enhance qualifications, and the perception that due to online teaching, there is more time for personal development. We employ a set of ordinal regression analyses controlling for age, gender, position, type of science, and country. The results suggest that Emotional Creativity and its three components predict the motivation of university professors to creatively capitalize on the imposed online teaching in looking for innovative research and personal development under the conditions of COVID-19. Furthermore, our results confirmed the gender and age differences in EC. The differences in EC according to position and type of science were not statistically significant. These results compel us to be aware of the importance of the emotional side of creativity to optimize stress-related behavior under the conditions of limited abilities to continue as usual. More space devoted to the manifestation of all the aspects of emotional creativity would improve adaptation to challenging circumstances and even allow one to capitalize on new opportunities. Moreover, we suggest that if personal intrinsic Emotional Creativity is high, the crises, such as the COVID-19 epidemic, may improve adaptation and trigger creative outcomes. (shrink)

Résumé Cette recherche porte sur le rôle joué par les différents éléments d’une image dans l’interprétation de cette image et dans les émotions qu’elle induit. A partir de l’approche structurale de la théorie des représentations sociales on suppose que certains des éléments d’une image seraient centraux tandis que d’autres seraient périphériques. Pour explorer cette piste on a retouché trois photographies originales afin de supprimer certains des éléments qu’elles montraient. Les photographies originales et les photographies retouchées ont été présentées à trois (...) groupes de participants qui devaient, pour chaque photographie, produire trois associations verbales puis évaluer le niveau d’activation des émotions ressenties. Les résultats montrent que certains des éléments d’une image en déterminent à la fois le sens et les émotions qu’elle induit, d’autres n’en déterminent que les émotions, d’autres enfin ne déterminent ni la signification, ni les émotions induites. Ces résultats suggèrent que dans le cadre de la théorie des représentations sociales, l’analyse des images en termes d’éléments centraux et périphériques pourrait être très utile pour mieux comprendre comment fonctionnent ces images en tant que systèmes sémiotiques. (shrink)

Semiotics is the study of signs addressing their action, usage, communication and signification. Edusemiotics—educational semiotics—is a recently developed direction in educational theory that takes semiotics as its foundational philosophy and explores the philosophical specifics of semiotics in educational contexts. As a novel theoretical field of inquiry, it is complemented by research known under the banner ‘semiotics in education’, which is largely an applied enterprise. In this respect edusemiotics is a new conceptual framework for both theoretical and empirical studies. Edusemiotics has (...) also been given the status of being a new branch of theoretical semiotics and it was launched as such at the 12th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies in September 2014 at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia. The article presents ‘semiosis’ as the action of signs across culture AND nature and posits ‘learning’ in terms of developing semiotic consciousness and semiotic competence. Semiosis is a process and as such it defies the Cartesian philosophy of substance-dualism that still informs the culture of education. The paper focuses specifically on university education permeated by disciplinary boundaries and the fragmentation of knowledge grounded in objective science inherited from modernity. Where is semiotics as the science of signs in the context of academic culture? The authors conclude by affirming the transdisciplinary character of semiotics and edusemiotics and specify the distinctive focal points of transdisciplinary knowledge afforded by edusemiotics. (shrink)

The article analyses the contribution of Ukrainian National Council in Petrograd - plenipotentiary representative body of Ukrainian Central Rada in the capital of Russia, created after the February Revolution in 1917 under the heading of O. Lototskyi and P. Stebnytskyi - in the facility of helping refugees and evictees from Galicia, Volyn and Kholmshchyna during the First World War. Individual letters of evicts from Ukraine have been published V. Rozvadovsky, the assistant professor of the university and the professional gymnasium in (...) Stanislaviv I. S. Demianchuk, etc.), which came to the address of Ukrainian National Council. There were analyzed lists of Galician settlers, which had to live in Tashkent, on the Russian territory, in Voronizh, Kazanska, Enyseiska and other provinces). It was proved, that in the period of functioning of Ukrainian National Council the help to refugees and evictees from Galicia, Volyn and Kholmshchyna was focused in the frame, allocated by researchers second stage of the solution of the refugee problem - preparing to reevacuation, initiated in times of Ukrainian National Council. The practical contribution of Ukrainian National Council in Petrograd was in the collection of statistical information about evictees, submission to higher government institutions of appeals and petitions regarding the improvement of their living conditions and providing of material assistance, returning them to the territory of Ukraine, appealing to charitable organizations and patronage volunteers requesting assistance to war prisoners and evictees, involvement in law-making practice, directed to facilitating the fate of this social category. (shrink)

The attempt to analyze basic concepts of science studies, which make it possible to integrate scientific societies of Ukraine in the late ХІХth - early ХХth centuries the general background of research area, have been carried out in the article. Content of certain definitions ("scientific community", "institutionalization of science", "social institutions", "scientific society") was determined. Explanation of cognitive and socio-institutional research area has been given, the first of which contains the main blocks of scientific disciplines, and the second represents all (...) the organizational structures that make up the sphere of scientists' activity as the creators of science and those organizations which function as organized structures of scientists' creativity. It is proved that since the late ХІХth - early ХХth centuries social research area is the sphere of institutionalized scientific activity that enables to qualify the groups of scientists in those days as the social institutions within the institualizational process. Functioning of scientific societies of Ukraine in the late ХІХth - early ХХth centuries, their differentiation and integration is proposed to consider in the context of network model of science that means integration of disparate elements in the network of interconnected structures of the system, between which information circulates constantly, and using the methods of synergetics which is an interdisciplinary concept of self-organization of complex systems in the space of their evolution. (shrink)

У статті проаналізовано історіографічний доробок, присвячений життєвому і творчому шляху видатного українського книговидавця, публіциста, культурно-громадського та політичного діяча П. Я. Стебницького ; запропоновано авторську класифікацію праць сучасного українського дискурсу з проблематики. Виділено когорту науковців, які займаються вивченням постаті П. Стебницького, різних аспектів його діяльності, а також відзначено національні наукові інституції, на базі яких професійно здійснюються такі дослідження. Проведений аналіз тематичного сегменту публікацій, у результаті чого встановлено, що дослідники активно популяризують наукову й епістолярну спадщину діяча, вивчають його книгознавчу, бібліотекознавчу та частково (...) громадську діяльність, приділяють достатню увагу аналізу його політичних поглядів. (shrink)

The authors of the article explore the concepts ‘agricultural biographics’ and ‘agricultural biographistics’, proposing an interpretation of the terms. ‘Agricultural biographistics’ is defined as a full palette of portraits of agricultural scientists, sectoral bibliographical and biobibliographical reference publications, and the creation of electronic resources of biographical information about eminent figures in the field of agriculture. ‘Agricultural biographics’ is a distinct branch of historiography focusing on biographical research about agricultural scientists, and the theoretical and methodological foundations of biographical research of agricultural (...) scientists. The article analyses the achievements in scientific bibliographical research of the Department of Biographistics at the Institute of History of Agrarian Science, Education and Technology of the National Scientific Agricultural Library of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine. The authors argue that much of specifically historical research exists alongside inadequate theoretical studies on its foundations, which, accordingly, calls for the development of some aspects of agricultural biographistics. The article also outlines the theoretical and methodological visions in the biographies of agricultural scholars, considering also the architectonics of the publications, the types/models of biographies, and methodological approaches. (shrink)

In this article, we consider the problem of a discrepancy between, on the one hand, lay prescriptive judgments on the necessity of altruistic actions and, on the other, attributing moral worth to these actions. Based on Kantian theory of morality, we hypothesized that lay attributions of the moral worth of altruistic actions would be inversely related to normative ought-judgments according to which these actions should be performed, as having positive evolutionary-based utilitarian externalities for the actors. To test this general hypothesis, (...) we conducted two experiments using the same set of vignettes that were constructed based on systematically varying such factors as relatedness, reciprocity, the size of donation, and probability of meeting in the future. The results provide overall confirmation of our assumption, as evaluative judgments about the moral worth were inversely dependent on information provided about possible contributions from such consequentialist, payoff-based mechanisms as kinship and expected reciprocity, while prescriptive judgments were positively influenced by such information cues. (shrink)

This paper outlines the main trends in higher education in the Baltic States and in particular in Estonia and Latvia, on the basis of the European Union concept of competitiveness and knowledge-based society development. Using the World Bank system of knowledge-based indicators, the position of the Baltic States is discussed and compared with international competitiveness ratings. We illustrate higher education systems in Estonia and Latvia by providing information on present institutional structures and by analyzing the key issues that contributed to (...) their adaptation to a market economy in the 1990s until they became members of the EU. The study suggests that the educational systems in Estonia and Latvia are rather similar and that they have been restructured in accordance with western educational requirements and quality standards. They have greatly benefited from international efforts to professionalize the faculty in these institutions. At the same time, the educational system is not yet fully adjusted to the dynamic needs of the labor market. In order to meet the needs of competitive development, the education systems of the Baltic States, as small open countries and new EU members, should focus on increasing the functional flexibility of the labor force. (shrink)